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Friday, September 10, 2010

There are several verities of Kachories in India and they all taste different, but I never had a meat kachori ever. So I thought of giving it a go to see how it tastes. I have never made kachories before so it took me couple of times to get it right specially the size of the kachories. I remember one of the many disasters was the kachori was cooked from outside but inside it had dough like texture. It wasn’t cooked at all. The amount of oil goes into the dough is absolutely crucial as it forms the outer crust and you don’t want it to be soft.

To make the dough mix all the dry ingredients together well and then add the oil and give it a good mix. Now add water slowly and kneed the dough continuously until it reaches uniform consistency. Keep it aside for some time (15- 20 minutes). Meanwhile in a pan, dry roast the whole spices for 1 minute and grind them using pestle and mortar. Heat the oil in a pan and add the red chilli powder, chopped onion, ginger- garlic paste and stir. Cook for 1-2 minutes then add the chopped tomato and the roasted spices powder and continue to cook till the onions are golden brown and soft. Add the minced meat, mix it well with the spice mixture and continue to cook. Season it well and cook till the meat is well done. Take it off the heat and let it cool.

Knead the dough for 1-2 minutes again then divide the dough into 10- 12 equal parts. Roll the small dough balls using a rolling pin. Now put spoon full of minced meat mixture at the centre of the rolled dough. Seal the dough from all sides and keep it aside. Repeat the procedure for all the small dough balls. Heat oil in a deep-bottomed pan.Take the filled dough balls, dust it with some dry flour, and roll them a bit with the rolling pin. Deep-fry individually each kachori and then drain the excess oil in a tissue.

For the tamarind chutney:

In a pan dry roast the cumin seeds for the tamarind sauce for 1-2 minutes then grind the roasted seeds in a pestle and mortar. Keep it aside. Now in the same pan add all other ingredients for the tamarind sauce and let it cook for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes add the roasted cumin seed powder in to the tamarind mixture and cook it for another 5 minutes. Strain the mixture in a bowl to get a thick sauce.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

OK! Now I know this sounds bit strange but after you read the whole story you will know how I ended up doing this experiment. My better half was out of country for couple of weeks. I was alone at home and honestly didn't have any drive or interest to cook for me only. You see, I am known for my laziness and specially when the king is away from the castle, the whole administration becomes quite relaxed (a bit too much relaxed!!). Throughout week I had lived on minimum cooking. To begin with, heating up the leftovers but how long can leftovers remain? Once they are over then I turned on to heating stuff on oven and microwave. Somehow I reached the end of the week and on Friday, I reached my limit of having frozen food so I decided to cook something. I cooked some spaghetti in white sauce with mushrooms and peas and opened a bottle of red wine.

While having my dinner I was reading about how difficult it is to match a wine with chocolate and as a result started craving for a piece of cake. It was quite late to go to supermarket, so the only option I had is to bake it myself. I started the process and then I thought why not bake a chocolate cake with red wine. Quite a lot of wine was left in the bottle and this was just the excuse I was looking for to do my experiment. I found a recipe online, but I find it difficult to stick to recipes so mid way in the process of baking the cake I thought let me add some whiskey as well. It's going to boozy cake anyway why not make it a cocktail one. So I used some single malt whiskey from my husband's collection. Later on when I told him that I used some of his treasures in baking the cake, he was shocked and gave me a blank look and to his surprise there was a glittering spark of revenge in my eyes.

For soaking: (Yes, you need to soak the cake, which keeps the cake moist for a long time)

1 cup of water2 tbsp sugar1 glass of red wine

Method:

In a bowl mix all the dry ingredients together and keep it aside. Melt the butter and add the sugar to it and start whisking. Break the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mix and whisk them until pale in colour. Melt the chocolate and add that to the egg-sugar-butter mix. Continue whisking while adding the glass of wine in to it. Now add the dry ingredient mix in the whisked mixture and as usual continue mixing (use a electric one). When it has become a homogeneous mixture, add the whiskey and the nuts and mix with a spatula. Preheat oven to 170°C and grease the baking tin. Pour the mixture in to the baking tin and bake it in the oven for 35 minutes until well risen. Insert a skewer in to the centre of the cake to check if it is cooked. If it comes out clean then your cake is ready. Once cooked, let it cool down for half-an-hour or so, then take out from the baking tin.

Now comes the soaking bit. Bring water and sugar to the boil in a small pan and add the red wine to it. Place cooled cake back in tin and pour the red wine syrup in to it. Once the liquid has been absorbed, store it in the fridge at least for few hours (ideally overnight). Don't try to cut a piece out immediately after soaking, I learnt this because I did and it broke into pieces as it was too moist. Later on you can take the cake out of the tin carefully and serve cold.

Note: This was a pure experiment with some unconventional ingredients for a cake but I enjoyed it. Hope you will also like it!!